Asus unleashes ultra-thin U36 notebook..

These laptops just keep on getting thinner, with the latest to enter the super slim brigade arriving in the form of the Asus U36.

The 19mm thick magnesium alloy netbook features clever technology that means it keeps itself clean, so you can transport it anywhere you go. Dirt, water and fingerprint marks are repelled by the laptops nanometer coating. Mucky-pups will also like the seamless chiclet keyboard which keeps those crumbs at bay. 

The laptop itself features something called the ASUS Super Hybrid Engine that allows for USB 3.0 toggling. Nvidia graphics with Optimus technology, a standard voltage i5 processor and 13.3 inch HD tft display make up the rest of the U36's hardware specs. 

Asus has managed to preserve battery life despite the standard voltage i5, squeezing an 11.5 hours out of the laptop. This is partly due to a dual heat pipe design that keeps the laptop cool and small in size.  

500GB of storage and a 5 in 1 card reader also means you can back up snaps or other media on the go.

Available in either silver or black and priced in at £699, the U36 is set to hit stores before the end of this month.

Pentax Q Pocket-size interchangeable lens camera lands..

Pentax has announced the Pentax Q - a device it is describing as "the world’s smallest and lightest digital interchangeable-lens camera system".
Packing a new Q mount system that has a diameter 6mm shorter than the K mount, the new system eradicates the optical finder, mirror box, focusing plate and AF sensor - meaning that it can all fit into a magnesium-alloy chassis described as "pocket-sized". The body measures 98 x 57.5 x 31mm and it weighs 200g, but will depend what lens you attach.
If there's been a compromise in getting the first prize for smallness then perhaps it is that the sensor is on the small side too - although you'll no doubt still be able to get some cracking images with the back illuminated 1/2.3-inch CMOS image sensor with 12.4 effective megapixels, with the option to shoot JPEG and RAW.
The sensor boasts high efficient light gathering optical construction, and is backed up by a new generation imaging engine with an ISO range of 125 to 6400.

There are four positions on the front dial for you to assign your favourites of the nine smart effects on offer, which are listed as Brilliant Colour, Funicular Bold, Vintage Colour, Cross Processing, Warm Fade, Tone Expansion (like HDR), Bold Monochrome, Water Colour, Vibrant Colour Enhance, and finally User defined. You'll also be able to shoot 1080p HD movies at 30fps.
Other killer features including a Bokeh function (which looks to create the "background defocus" effect we've seen elsewhere), a shake reduction mechanism, a top shutter speed of 1/2000 second, and the choice to shoot in 4:3, 3:2, 16:9 or 1:1 aspects. Of course you get manual shooting controls as well as the normal aperture and shutter priority shooting modes.
The LCD monitor is a 3-inches with 460k dots and has a viewing angle of 170 degrees which will be handy in low light, or bright light situations, but doesn't reach the resolution of some displays on rival cameras.
You'll need to team it up with one of the five Q mount lenses that have been announced as well: the Pentax-01 Standard Prime (F/1.9, 47mm in 35mm terms), the 02 Standard Zoom (27.5-83mm), the 03 Fish Eye (160 degree angle), the 04 Toy Lens (35mm) or the 05 Toy Lens Telephoto (100mm).
With retro styling and the selection of smart effects and lenses, it looks like Pentax are gunning for those who like to create easy creative photos, perhaps with a penchant for Hipstamatic or Lomo effect, given the Toy Lens and Cross Processing options.
The price of the Pentax Q is still to be confirmed, but we know that it should hit the shops in September in white or black.

Angry Birds Magic Places Bringing Location-Based Unlocks..

We knew that Angry Birds Magic would take the original avian-chucking game and add in some social functionality, urging you to connect with other players in order to unlock additional content through your smartphone’s NFC transceiver; look for it on Nokia devices this year. Now Rovio has revealed another aspect of this new way to play with Angry Birds, announcing Magic Places.

Magic Places expands on the idea of using proximity to other players to unlock content, instead using your phone’s GPS receiver to unlock content based on your proximity to pre-defined areas. These are spaces which Rovio has deemed “magic”, and visiting them will enable you to unlock extras like the level-clearing Mighty Eagle.

Is this direction going to work for Angry Birds? A big part of what makes the game so appealing is how easy it is to pick up your smartphone and play a few levels when you have a minute to spare (or when you’re blowing-off real work). Will the majority of players feel like they’re getting more out of the game by hunting down magic places, or will it seem like a chore? A lot of that could depend on how Rovio defines them, choosing where they’re located, as well as how valuable the unlockable content is towards completing new levels.

Rumour : Nokia N9 will not be coming to India..

Though the news is still unconfirmed, there is a possibility that the MeeGo - based Nokia N9 will not be arriving in India at all. Many consider the fate of the N9 already sealed, and the general consensus is that it will be the first and last MeeGo device from Espoo’s stables. Unfortunate yes, but we hope for the sake of the developers, as well as for consumer choice, the platform will find adoption amongst other manufacturers. Things look a bit bleak however.

Keeping all this in mind, it is hardly surprising that the industry expects Nokia to limit the sale of the N9 to select countries. Other reports, by the usually well-informed Eldar Murtazin, predict that Nokia will be making comparatively few units of the N9, less than 100,000.

But, while India is not on the list of 23 territories, we are unreasonably hopeful that Nokia will make some more, and bring a limited quantity here, if the device sees some healthy demand in other countries.

LG’s Optimus 3D officially launched..

The long wait is finally over! Joining the likes of HTC EVO 3D and Sharp SH-12C is LG’s very own Optimus 3D aka Thrill 4G for AT&T, which we first got our hands on back in February and again in March. The specs for this Android 2.2 device (yeah, we know) have remained untouched since we last checked: here we have a 4.3-inch glasses-less 3D LCD with 800 x 480 resolution, a 1GHz dual core TI OMAP4430 processor, 512MB of speedy dual channel RAM, a 1.3 megapixel front-facing camera, and a couple of 5 megapixel cameras on the back that can capture 3D 1080p video at 24fps, or 3D 720p at 30fps. Other tidbits include 14.4Mbps HSPA+ connection, an HDMI-out port, and a removable 1500mAh battery, all inside a 5.93 ounce package. Alas, no date’s been mentioned for the phone’s US launch, but the lucky Europeans will get to pick up this phone first, followed by the rest of the world “over the next several weeks..

Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo to hit the shops in the next few weeks..

Sitting in the middle of Sony Ericsson’s Xperia range, and offering a slightly smaller screen than the range-topping models, the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo has a lot to offer. It has loads of decent features, and is set to hit the shops in the next couple of weeks.

The Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo has been somewhat overshadowed of late, with its siblings – the Xperia Play and the Xperia Arc – taking the limelight.

Despite the relative lack of publicity, we particularly like the look of the Xperia Neo’s screen, which measures in at 3.7 inches and offers a pin sharp 854×480 pixels. As such, it should be able to match the iPhone 4 when it comes to showing off your photos or checking out the web.

Performance should be impressive, with a 1GHz processor powering the Xperia Neo’s Gingerbread operating system. The 8-megapixel camera puts the Neo on par with rivals, and there’s also an LED flash for night time shots.

We were initially expecting the Sony Ericsson Xperia Neo to go on sale during April, but production delays mean that the smartphone has slipped off the radar. It’s now expected to ship during the first week of July, so you can expect it to hit the shops soon.

HTC launches Wildfire S in India..

HTC has launched Wildfire S smartphone in India. The Android-powered smartphone is priced at Rs 14,700. 

The smartphone runs on Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread and features a 3.2-inch HVGA display and 5-megapixel autofocus camera. It is powered by a 600 Mhz processor and it is 12.4 mm thick. HTC Wildfire S is one of HTC's smallest phones ever – measuring just 10.13cm long and 5.94cm wide. The smartphone has a 5-megapixel camera with auto focus, expandable microSD memory and support for a variety of audio and video formats. 

It also features the new HTC Sense user interface. With HTC Locations, a new differentiated online mapping experience, users have instant, on-demand mapping without download delays or incurring mobile roaming charges. HTC Sense also includes a new integrated online e-reading experience utilizing a new e-book store powered by Kobo and a new, mobile-optimized e-reader that offers the ability to highlight, annotate and quickly search for definitions or translate unfamiliar terms.

Ten Highlights of Mac OS X Lion for Apple Macbook..

As we all know, Apple has developed iOS for the iPhone. Based on the system of Mac OS X, and now it brings the best to the iPad to your Mac with Mac OS X Lion, available in summer 2011.

Highlight 1: Newly Multi Touch Gestures
Multi-Touch gestures make everything you do on iPad easy and intuitive. The latest Mac OS X Lion brings more handy ways to interact with your Mac. Enjoy more fluid and realistic gesture responses, including rubber-band scrolling, page and image zoom, and full-screen swiping. In Mac OS X Lion, every swipe, pinch, and scroll looks and feels more responsive and lifelike.

Highlight 2: Launchpad — A Home for Your Apps
Launchpad gives users instant access to your apps in iPad style. Just click the Launchpad icon in your Dock and then get a full-screen view of all your apps in Launchpad. It takes just a swipe to see multiple pages of apps, and you can arrange them any way you like by dragging icons to different locations or by grouping apps in folders. In fact, it’s just about as fast as keeping an Application folder in your dock, and easier to glance at too. The Launchpad can also be enhanced by adding directories so you can find anything you need in just a few clicks. And when you download an app from the Mac App Store, it automatically appears in Launchpad.

Highlight 3: Full-screen Apps
Another wonderful feature for users is the full-screen app views for Mac OS X Lion. It’s an idea that fits some apps much better than others — iPhoto. In iPhoto, users can see all Events at one time in full-screen view. One click for an app in full screen, tree fingers swipe to switch to another. Again, just like you view your Apps on the iPad or iPhone, Full Screen view of an App really makes it stand out more for great functionality.

Highlight 4: Mission Control
Mission Control is actually a new Expose, integrating the Dock, Dashboard and views from all open apps, both windowed and full screen. With a simple swipe, your desktop zooms out to Mission Control, and you can get to anything you see in Mission Control with just one click.

Highlight 5: Versions
Simply put, this is Time Machine for files. Versions records the evolution of a document as you create it. Mac OS X Lion automatically creates a version of the document each time you open it and every hour while you’re working on it. This way, when you realize you’ve made a mistake along the way, you can most easily slide through the different versions of your work and revert anything you want by copying and pasting it in place.

Highlight 6: Resume
Nothing fancy, but very useful. Whenever you quit and relaunch an app, Resume opens it precisely the way you left it. Everything is persistent — your files, folders and applications are preserved exactly as you left them. So you never have to start from scratch again.

Highlight 7: Mail 5
Just like Mail on iPad, Mail 5 in Mac OS X Lion features a new layout that takes advantage of the widescreen display on your Mac. You’ve got a left column with all your messages and a preview pane on the right — threaded messages are numbered in the new conversation view, which is a dead-simple idea that works really well. Search has also been dramatically improved with easy query-stacking options, and folders can be added to a new bookmark bar-style Mailbox Bar at the top of the screen.

Highlight 8: Mac App Store
Just like shopping the App Store on iPad, the Mac App Store offers endless possibilities for browsing and purchasing apps. Newly purchased apps install in one step and appear right in the new Launchpad. It is the easiest way to install and keep applications up to date.

Highlight 9: Lion Server
Instead of having to buy it separately, Lion Server is now part of Mac OS X Lion, making it more mainstream and available for the masses. Manage users and groups easily. Even monitor performance with graphs.

Highlight 10: AirDrop
One of Lion’s niftiest new features is AirDrop, which allows quick and easy file transfers between WiFi-equipped Macs. Just click the AirDrop icon in the Finder sidebar, and your Mac automatically discovers other people nearby who are using AirDrop. Swapping files is as simple as dragging and confirming. Also, AirDrop doesn’t require setup or special settings.